1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to lawn and garden tractors or similar vehicles, and more specifically to a circuit for allowing the engine of such a vehicle to crank and run without an operator being present at the operator station, provided certain drive conditions are met.
2) Related Art
Some presently available lawn and garden tractors having a transmission and a selectively activatable power take off (PTO) include interlock circuits to prevent engine cranking or running unless an operator presence switch, such as a seat switch, is activated. An example of such a circuit is shown in commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 4,651,018. A particularly annoying problem with many of the interlock circuits for lawn and garden tractors is the need for a second person to remain on the seat when the operator is making adjustments on a running engine. Some existing lawn and garden tractors have circuits such as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,203,440, also of common ownership with the present application, to permit the engine to crank and run without an operator on the seat as long as the transmission is in neutral and the PTO is switched off. However, providing the crank and run without operator feature on existing lawn and garden systems that require activation of an operator presence switch usually involves an extensive and costly circuit modification.